


Learning and Labor

by Quasar



Category: College of Magics - Stevermer
Genre: F/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2006, recipient:ulfsdatter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-20
Updated: 2006-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quasar/pseuds/Quasar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samuel and Jane Lambert find their place in a world changed and illuminated by magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learning and Labor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ulsdatter](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ulsdatter).



In a shaft of sunlight streaming in through the bay window of Baldwin Cottage, Nicholas Lambert was humming under his breath while he built an improbably balanced tower of blocks. The tune he hummed was simple and repetitive, almost mesmeric. Samuel Lambert glanced up from the journal on his knee and considered giving advice on the structure, or maybe on the music, then decided to let the boy learn on his own. Either his architecture or his magic was bound to be better for it.

 

The twins were dozing -- Leo in the crook of Lambert's arm and Anne in her little cradle -- after a long night of keeping their parents awake. With classes out of session, there were fewer students to help care for the children at odd hours, so the two of them had to respond to every anxious start from the infants. Glancing down at his son, Lambert was beginning to think a nap sounded like a fine idea.

 

Lambert lowered his journal and sighed; it was heavy going. He considered himself reasonably capable at mathematics, but he was accustomed to adding and multiplying _numbers_. All the equations in this text used letters instead, and it was making his mind whirl. On top of that, the translation from the German had been done rather clumsily.

 

He glanced over at his wife, who was reading some papers of her own, every once in a while extending a stockinged foot to keep Anne's cradle rocking gently. As always, Jane Lambert née Brailsford appeared immaculately dressed and perfectly composed, though Lambert had seen her harried and disheveled as himself in the small hours of the morning.

 

Jane had set down the book she was reading in favor of a letter written in a sprawling, long-looped hand.

 

"Is that from Faris?" Lambert asked.

 

Jane nodded. "It arrived just this morning."

 

"What does she have to say?"

 

Jane's mouth crimped elegantly. "She's exhausted. She's been in Sarajevo trying to stifle some assassination plot, and now she's off to Vienna. But whenever she pours oil on the waters in a magical sense, it seems politics roils it all up again. Even one of the four wardens can't fix everything."

 

"Two of the four," Lambert corrected. "Nicholas is in the thick of it as well. Nicholas Fell," he added as his son, Fell's namesake, looked up from his architecture. Young Nicholas had his father's brown eyes but his mother's particular composure, surprising to see in such a young boy.

 

"Yes, and I understand the warden of the east has been kept very busy in Japan," Jane said.

 

"They say Europe is a tinderbox just waiting for a spark," Lambert mused.

 

"Faris seems to think some kind of explosion is inevitable. They're just hoping to minimize the damage. According to auguries, they've already prevented some of the ghastlier outcomes."

 

"What kind of exp'osion?" Nicholas asked with interest.

 

"A political explosion," Jane said quellingly.

 

"Oh." Nicholas deflated a little.

 

"Possibly a war," Lambert added. He didn't believe in keeping the truth from his son, even if he was only four. In any case, if war did come, they would all hear about it soon enough.

 

"War!" said Nicholas, with more enthusiasm.

 

"_That_ would be one of the ghastlier outcomes," Jane said firmly. "We must all pray it won't come about."

 

Nicholas looked a little rebellious at that, but then asked thoughtfully, "If there's a war, would Papa be in it?"

 

"I hope not," said Lambert fervently.

 

"Can I come with you?"

 

"Certainly not," said Jane in tones that closed the topic. "Let us speak of something less bloodthirsty. I have been reading this story by Mr. Clemens, 'The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg.'" She picked up the book that she had set aside earlier.

 

"Ah." Lambert leaned forward in interest. "I do like Mark Twain's humor. Very dry."

 

"Rather cutting, as well. He has quite a poor opinion of Hadleyburg. Do you believe it was truly based upon Oberlin?"

 

"I'm not sure." Lambert considered. "They say when he came through here to do some readings, some folk weren't so amused by his style. But I'm not sure that would make him angry enough to write something like that."

 

"If he found the people here pretentious enough, he might have."

 

Lambert snorted. "If he thinks Oberlinians are pretentious, he must never have been to Glasscastle."

 

"Or Greenlaw." Jane smiled. "But what are you reading, Samuel?"

 

"Well, this is really more in your line than mine, I'm afraid," he said, flipping back to the front of the article. "It's a paper from the German Annals of Physics, called 'On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light.' It was written nearly ten years ago by a Swiss patent clerk, and apparently it's caused quite a stir."

 

"What's 'horristic?'" asked Nicholas.

 

"Heuristic," Jane articulated for him. "It means speculative. Trying to figure out the answer to a problem by thinking about it. But my dear, whatever set you to read about such a subject?"

 

Lambert sighed. "Nicholas Fell told me this fellow's work is absolutely essential for understanding modern thought about the nature of the thaumaturgic and luminiferous ethers. I thought it might be useful for the class I'm teaching next term." It was to be an interdisciplinary seminar on the connection between magic and the natural sciences, and though Lambert would share the lectures with a professor better experienced in physics, he felt he should understand all the material himself if he was to teach it.

 

Jane blinked. "I thought the existence of a luminiferous ether was already disproven, by that experiment with the mirrors."

 

"Michelson and Morley, yes. But apparently some folk are still attached to the idea of ether, so they can't agree what that result means. Or what it means for magic."

 

"As to that, the physical reality of an ether doesn't change its thaumaturgic significance. Ptolemy's epicycles and the music of the spheres continue to affect magic long after the heliocentric model has been accepted."

 

"That's what I figured. But I'm supposed to be teaching about the connection between magic and physics."

 

"Sometimes the connection is a lack of connection," Jane pointed out. "Look at those blocks, there. You can't claim they're bound by the laws of gravity." The tower Nicholas was building and rearranging had taken a definite sideways slant, but it showed no sign of falling.

 

"That's what's making my head hurt," said Lambert. "I understand it myself -- at least, I think I do. But I can't see how to put it into words for the students."

 

Jane nodded. "It's one of the difficulties of making magic merely one part of a wider education, as they do here. At Greenlaw and Glasscastle the students would be steeped in magic from their first day."

 

Here at Oberlin, in contrast with the Gothic architecture that wouldn't have looked out of place in old England, all subjects were taught in the most modern methods. Both the college itself and the associated conservatory of music were gaining solid reputations, at least within the States. To the Europeans, of course, all American institutions seemed like upstarts.

 

Oberlin had proved the solution to a tricky dilemma for the Lamberts; with Jane established at Greenlaw and Lambert at Glasscastle, and neither institution accepting teachers or students of the opposite sex, how were they to find a home where both could live and do meaningful work? So they had crossed the sea (fortunately, the new ocean liners made the journey in just a few days, for Lambert found the crossing far more difficult than his first, and Jane was even worse off) to take positions at this small college in Ohio that was trying to add the study of magic to its list of subjects. Oberlin college had been quite happy to add a married couple to the faculty; they ended up supervising the dorm where most of the growing population of female students stayed.

 

The Lamberts were currently the only two professors of magic at the college, but they were assisted by some others who had an interest in the field. Lambert was particularly interested in forging a connection between the musical studies of the conservatory and those of magic. Jane taught a more philosophical approach to magic, but she had needed to cut back her lecture schedule somewhat after the children were born. Thus somehow Lambert had ended up saddled with a class combining magic and science, which was not at all his strong suit.

 

Beyond the open windows, the new clock mechanism in Finney Chapel began to chime the hour: two o'clock. Lambert noted the sequence with a keen ear, hearing where the timing needed adjustment. The bells, at least, were adequately in tune, and their careful intervals spread an air of calm across the town and campus. Lambert and Jane had both cast spells of warding, peace, and safety when the bells were commissioned. It was all done according to tradition, but likely not even half the people present believed the warding spells had any effect.

 

It didn't matter. The wards would grow in time, with each chime of the bells and each student of magic who sang the assigned chants and changes.

 

Lambert was drawn from his reverie by the noisy collapse of Nicholas's blocks. The sound roused Leo, who gave a squeak and then a drowsy wail. "So gravity triumphs in the end," Lambert said, shifting the infant in his arms.

 

"Here, give him to me." Jane reached out for the baby. "It's nearly time for their feeding anyway."

 

"Greedy little things," said Lambert fondly as he stood and handed Leo over to his wife, stealing a kiss in the process. Then he crouched to help Nicholas pick up the blocks.

 

"Why'd they fall, Papa?" Nicholas demanded. "I hummed at 'em!"

 

"Yes, and you did it very well," said Lambert, "but magic can't do everything. You need the magic and the shapes to work together. You see, when the blocks are already balanced, it's easier for the magic to keep them that way."

 

Nicholas stuck his lip out. "But that's boring!"

 

"If excitement was what you wanted, you did a fine job arranging it." Lambert lined up the blocks in rows in their little wooden chest and set it aside. "Now, how would you like to go outside and practice throwing that baseball?"

 

"Yeah!" Nicholas leapt to his feet and rummaged in the corner for ball, bat, and glove. "Can you show me how to catch it with magic, Papa?"

 

Lambert scratched at his neck as they thumped down the stairs from the dormitory. "It's the same idea, son. Magic can make it easier, but you need to know how to throw and catch it by yourself first."

 

"If I can hit the tree five times in a row, will you show me the magic?"

 

Lambert laughed and followed his son out into the warm summer sunshine.

**Author's Note:**

> I took small liberties with the timing of certain events in Europe and also the installation of the bells in Finney Chapel, but no doubt the discrepancies can be explained by magic.


End file.
